AND IT WAS GOOD

June 15, 2014

Pentecost 1

Genesis 1:1 - 2:4a

(prayer)

I want to make something clear from the start of this sermon: I do NOT believe that God created the world in seven days.  I do NOT believe that the first two homo sapiens emerged instantly as God played in the dirt - plus or minus a rib. 

I do not believe that things happened literally the way it is described in Genesis chapters one and two.  In fact, I find the dogma of so-called "creationism" - based on a literal reading of these biblical texts - unbelievable (at best) and laughable (at worst)... and ultimately distractingly sad.

If you were expecting me to take our passage from Genesis today and argue against what our collective scientific knowledge has discerned about the universe... I am sorry - you might want to play Candy Crush or Angry Birds on your phone for the next fifteen minutes or so.

//

The debate about our origins is not as simple as saying it is Science versus Religion - I don't view religion and science as polar opposites.  I believe that the knowledge gained through scientific discovery and the processes of theory and observation are part of the way we understand our place (theologically) in the grand schemes of existence. 

Just because I am not a creationist does not also mean that I believe that God has nothing to do with the nature of the universe and our place in it.  The way I see it, the current scientific explanations about the nature of the universe do not preclude the existence or creative abilities of God.

The truth is: good science does not try to do theology - science tries to explain how the universe is, not why it is - that is a function of philosophy and theology.

True scientists will freely admit that what they know as true right now may only be true for a while.  New theories have always challenged old ones and often lead us to realize that what we once thought was true - in fact, isn’t... anymore.

People who limit the possibilities of how we came to be to the literal words on the early pages of Genesis, will always have to assert that the scientific method must be wrong, because it concludes something other than the details of the Genesis account - regardless of whether it makes logical sense or not.

Personally, I am not so burdened.  And, I suspect, that the same goes for the vast majority of modern people of faith.  Gone are the days that we are forced to choose between reason and faith.  We allow science and spirituality to intermingle.

//

//

//

Virtually every ancient culture told stories of the origins of the world - the origins of life.  They are almost always mystical and involve some supernatural divine involvement.  All creation myths attempt to explain how the world was formed and most explore where humanity came from.  Some examples are:

·        The Japanese creation myth is a story that describes the legendary birth of the celestial and earthly world, the birth of the first gods and the birth of the Japanese archipelago. At the beginning, the universe was immersed in a beaten and shapeless kind of matter, sunk in silence. Later there were sounds indicating the movement of particles. With this movement, the light and the lightest particles rose but the particles were not as fast as the light and could not go higher. Thus, the light was at the top of the Universe, and below it, the particles formed first the clouds and then Heaven. The rest of the particles that had not risen formed a huge mass, dense and dark, to be called Earth.

·        In Hinduism, earlier Vedic thinking explained that the universe was created as a golden embryo from a golden womb. The creator was later identified with the god, Brahma. Other gods (Indra, Varuna and Vishnu) are credited with acts of creation, primarily the act of propping apart the sky and the Earth.

·        In Norse mythology, the first living being (formed in the primeval chaos of the great void) was an enormous giant named Y'mir - created as a result of the coming together of extreme cold and extreme heat.  The giant, Y'Mir, was slain by the AllFather god, Odin. The Norwegian tradition is... that from Y'mir's dead flesh, the earth was formed; his bones became the rocks; his skull, the sky; and his blood poured out as the sea.

·        The scientific tradition (and the Crosby, Stills Nash and Young song of the 60s) says that 'we are stardust'.

·        The Ojibway tradition is that (some time after Kitchi-Manitou populated the world with people) a great flood was sent to purify the earth.  And so the earth sank to the bottom of the great water created by the flood. After several creatures tried (and failed) to bring the earth back to the surface, it was the Turtle who bore the weight of creation and brought the earth back above the waters where it exists today.  Thus, in the Ojibway tradition, the earth is called Turtle Island.

I could go on and on - there are literally hundreds of creation stories from many, many world cultures - all trying to explain (within their context) how the world got to be the way it is: - they typically only try to explain the world as it was known to them; note that the Japanese tradition only explains the origin of the islands of Japan.  There is no need to explain the creation of Africa - Africa didn't exist in the worldview of the ancient Japanese.

//

Hebrew culture was no different.  What was read this morning is one of the ancient Hebrew creation stories.

Did you know that our Bibles contain two different versions of how the world came into being?  Genesis 1:1 - 2:4a and Genesis 2:4b-25.  The best biblical scholarship indicates that these are separate and distinct stories - independent of each other, with different authors, written at different times and in different places.  The easiest evidence of this assertion is the word(s) the authors use for The Creator: Genesis One uses 'elohim'; Genesis Two uses 'yahweh elohim'.

 //

In the first Genesis story (read today), creation is described as a week of divine creative activities - seven days. The second one describes God as having crafted the world like an artisan - molding with dirt (and other raw materials) in a garden.  I could spend all my time today comparing and contrasting Genesis 1 and Genesis 2, but I do want to focus on delving into the version where "in the beginning... the Spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters".

//

Bereshit bara elohim et ha'shamium ve'et ha'artez.

//

The verb in Genesis 1:1 is bara': it's almost always translated as 'created', but also carries the connotation of the act of shaping, forming, fabricating.  In our Bibles, the verb bara' is used in the context of divine actions (not exclusively, but usually).  Here, the subject of the verb bara' is elohim (God).  The duel objects in the first sentence of Genesis 1 are ha'shamium (the heavens) and ha'aritz (the earth).  And this is all described as happening 'in the beginning' (berashit).

Bereshit bara elohim et ha'shamium ve'et ha'artez.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

//

I said earlier that I don't think that it is wise to read this passage literally, so it follows that we should appreciate the metaphoric meaning.  We need to see the creation story (as Marcus Borg calls it) as more than literal.  We should be looking beyond the words - to discover the purpose and meaning of what's being said.

Genesis One's imagery and poetry is absolutely beautiful.  So, let's appreciate that in that way and look for what it can tell us about God as the source of all that is and about our place in the world we know.

//

Sometimes we assume that the creation accounts in Genesis present God as having created everything out of nothing.  That's not true.  In Genesis Two, the starting place is a dry landscape - a lifeless desert: before there were any plants because "yahweh elohim (the LORD God) had not caused it to rain upon the earth".  

And... as we read in Genesis One: in the beginning, there is a dark, formless void, described as a chaotic ocean ("The Deep").  Even the Big Bang creation narrative doesn't start with nothing: it begins with a pre-existing quantum singularity that was infinitely small and infinitesimally heavy.  In this evidence-based creation story, the singularity mysteriously explodes and spreads out... creating the universe. 

I would love to get into a conversation of why it might be that we, as humans, have trouble with imagining a time of pre-existent nothingness, but... not today, at least not at this moment.  Let's just accept that (in almost every attempt to describe it) 'Creation' is preceded by something: the current version of scientific truth says it is a singularity; in Genesis Two it is a desert; Genesis One, it is dark, unordered waters.

//

Now... to the beauty of Genesis One!

//

The story is made up of seven days - six days of creative work and one day of sabbath rest (coincidentally, a routine life-experience of the ancient Hebrews).  
One of the wonderful poetic characteristics of Genesis One is that the days are paired together - days 1, 2 and 3 are directly connected to days 4, 5 and 6.

Day One: into the dark formless void (where the Spirit blows like a wind over the face of the primordial waters of chaos), God introduces "light".  The method of creation in chapter one is not like the hands-on descriptions of chapter two: here God creates with... a word: God said, let there be light. And there was light.  Just 'cause God said so.

It is not the case that the light replaced the darkness or even superseded it.  Light was created to interact with darkness.  Alone, blinding light is just as inhospitable as complete darkness. 

On day one, God mixes light and darkness and the result is the first bit of order in the chaos - on day one, there is perspective: the opportunity to appreciate depth - as light and shadow interact.  Day and night, by definition, cannot exist apart from each other.  The one is needed to appreciate (and understand) the other.

And it was good (tov).

The first night came, followed by morning: day one!

//

The corresponding day four has God speak even more order into the light and dark of creation: great and lesser lights are introduced - the sun, the moon, the stars: the discernible movement and patterns of which make possible the understandings of the seasons and cycles of daily life - something the original hearers of this story knew to be true.

And it was good.

//

At the end of day one, the universe is simply water (an ocean - the deep) moving from night into day.  On day two, the water is divided, as God creates a barrier called "sky" (King James Bible = firmament). This is the picture Genesis creates: water, water everywhere and God creates an air bubble: with waters above the firmament and waters below it.  We know there is water must above the sky, because it occasionally leaks down as rain.

And it was good.

//

Day one brought about light and darkness; day two sees the separation of water and sky.  Like how, on day four, things were created to fill the environment of day one, the parallel on day five brings things into the sky and water: birds and fish, creatures of the air and creatures of the sea.

And it was good.

//

Day three is a further separation of the waters below the sky as dry land (filled with vegetation) appears in some places.  Dry land does not replace the water, but only separates it into various lakes, rivers and seas.  The ancient Hebrews knew that the waters of 'the deep' were still below the land because if you dug a deep enough hole, you would find it.

And it was good.

//

Again, (like before) the environment created on day three is filled on day six - living creatures of the land appear: included a special creation made in the image of God.  So God created humankind in God's image... male and female God created them.  There is no inherent male superiority here - no woman being created out of man.  The first mention of the human species in the bible is centered in gendre equality.

//

The text says that the creation of the land animals was good, but it doesn't say it again after humans are created (interesting...), but presumably all of day six was good, as well.

What Genesis One does say is that (after these six days), God surveyed everything that had been made and it was more-than-good: it was VERY good! (tov me'od)

//

The world we know is created in goodness.

//

Now, I know some will say, that this is before Adam and Eve and the apple and the fall of humanity into 'sin'.  I remind you that Genesis One and Two are distinct and separate stories. 

The original telling of the seven day Hebrew creation story did not lead into Adam and Eve.  It ended with... God resting, looking over a world that was good!

//

Yes, over time, other stories would emerge and evolve the larger cultural and religious tradition away from the world (including its human beings) as good.  But, let's appreciate that there was a time and a place where the world (even with all of its hardships and problems) was viewed as... good.

For me, that is the beauty and wonder of Genesis, chapter one.

//

//

What difference would it make in our world today, if we saw everything and everyone around us as being founded in goodness?  There is so much suspicion and fear projected into our lives based on a premise that this world is a harsh and cruel place.  This perspective puts us in competition with each other - it makes the natural world a commodity to be exploited for its bounties before someone else does it.

I suggest that we need the perspective of "and it was good" again. 

If this has any chance as a successful worldview, it has to take hold in the hearts and minds of enough of those creatures who bear the image of God: you and I (and...)

//

My hope is that we will appreciate the wonder of the world, we know and understand and appreciate the mystery that continues to elude us.

//

The 'how' of creation described in Genesis One may not be real, but those words (those seven days) are filled with profound truth.

//

And it is good... really, very good.

//

Let us pray:

Wonderful God, as we take in stories of creation, we are marveling at the amazing gift that is 'this existence'.  Thank you, Creator, for this life and for the challenge to live up to the goodness you endow in creation.  Amen.

#291VU “All Things Bright and Beautiful”